The Michigan Legislature approved a budget that includes $800,000 for a firm that would distribute the money to faith-based anti-abortion organizations that promote childbirth / Al Goldis/AP Photo

Written by

The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

In a state that has chronically failed to address its crumbling roads or assure adequate funding for public schools and universities, Michigan’s state legislators seldom adjourn without erecting some new obstacle to women seeking to end unwanted pregnancies.

But perhaps no act demonstrates the legislative majority’s subservience to anti-abortion-rights activists more vividly than an appropriation buried deep in the budget bill awaiting Gov. Rick Snyder’s signature.

The provision in question earmarks $800,000 for an extension of Michigan’s contract with Real Alternatives, a Pennsylvania-based group that helps faith-based anti-abortion-rights groups qualify for taxpayer funding without violating state and federal constitutional provisions that bar government promotion of religion.

In theory, all the public money Real Alternatives passes on to such groups goes to defray the cost of counseling, baby furniture and other necessities for newborns and their mothers. But it’s noteworthy that Real Alternatives provides this conduit only to organizations that oppose abortion rights and the use of birth control pills, and encourage women to bring their unplanned pregnancies to term rather than end them.

In other words, Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits that provide similar assistance but leave this choice to their pregnant clients need not apply.

Real Alternatives won its first no-bid contract with Michigan in 2013. But the state has so far disbursed only about $30,000 of the $700,000 that legislators allocated for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Real Alternatives, which had not identified a single Michigan provider that met its qualifications as of last month, says it recently struck deals with three such providers, but the Michigan Department of Community Health could not verify that claim.

Even if we were not skeptical about the value of laundering taxpayer money for the benefit of faith-based organizations that actively discourage women from exercising the choices state and federal law guarantees to them, we would have to question the wisdom of renewing a $700,000 contract with a provider that has so far been unable to put even 10% of the money to use.

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But Michigan legislators didn’t just renew the appropriation, they actually increased it by another $100,000 — a 14% raise in a state where infrastructure and support for the working poor go wanting.

Sen. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, who spearheaded the appropriation to Real Alternatives, said it represents only a modest effort to seed an experimental program he hopes will become a model for the state.

“There is a view that promoting childbirth alternatives to abortion is preferential to abortion,” Moolenaar said. “We wanted to affirm that.” He acknowledged that Real Alternatives’ track record in Michigan is limited, but said the company’s successes in Pennsylvania and Texas, where it funnels money to anti-abortion-rights groups that provide counseling and other services to hundreds of thousands of pregnant women, justify the increase approved by Michigan lawmakers.

But we see little reason it would be in the interests of Michigan taxpayers (and especially the female ones) for Snyder to endorse this legislative genuflection to anti-abortion-rights interest groups.

Every governor has the authority to veto budget expenditures that cannot be justified, and Snyder should exercise his prerogative to eliminate this one.